Mother-child discourse, attachment security, shared positive affect, and early conscience development

The separate literatures on parental discipline, maternal discourse about e motion, and autobiographical memory support the idea that parent-child disc ourse in the context of a supportive relationship plays a role in a child's early conscience development, and this study was designed to examine this issue. Forty-two preschool children and their mothers took part in a 45-min structured laboratory session, and at their homes, mothers completed the A ttachment Q-Set. As part of the laboratory session, each mother was asked t o discuss with her child one incident that occurred within the last week in which her child behaved well and one in which her child misbehaved. These conversations were transcribed verbatim and coded for maternal references t o feelings, rules, consequences of the child's actions, and moral evaluativ es. Each child also took part in a behavioral measure of internalization an d several compliance tasks, and mothers completed a maternal report of the child's early conscience development. Consistent with attachment theory, at tachment security predicted maternal and child references to feelings and m oral evaluatives. Attachment security, shared positive affect between the m other and child, and maternal references to feelings and moral evaluatives also predicted specific aspects of early conscience development.